1. The Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to websites generally, and more particularly, but not necessarily entirely, the present disclosure relates to assigning computer users to test groups for a test running on a website.
2. Description of Related Art
Commercial transactions conducted through electronic communication (e.g., via the World Wide Web), commonly known as “e-commerce,” are a significant segment of the global economy. In a typical e-commerce transaction, a computer user, or user, decides upon a good or service that the user is interested in purchasing. The user then initiates access to a retailer's or service provider's e-commerce website via a network, perhaps after conducting a search for the website with a commercial search engine. The user may then purchase the desired product or service in an online transaction from the e-commerce website.
E-commerce websites are increasingly attracting a growing base of users. These users navigate through the myriad of e-commerce websites over the Internet using a web browser running on a computer, typically a desktop or laptop computer. The time spent by users visiting any one e-commerce site is typically very short when compared to a more traditional form of commerce, such as a shopping mall, due to the fact that while some online consumers are shopping for a particular item, other online consumers are simply “surfing” for bargains on interesting items.
Because of the extremely transient nature of users visiting e-commerce websites, an e-commerce website provider goes to great lengths to develop webpages for its website that include various features and design components that are intended to attract users into buying a product on the site. For example, a typical e-commerce webpage may employ various features that are displayed to online consumers, including, but not limited to, special promotions, product recommendations, top sellers, special navigational menus, product and information search features, shopping carts, discounted items, menus, tabs, gift ideas, rewards programs, holiday related items and delivery options.
Due to the limited display area on a given webpage, such as a website's home page, an e-commerce website provider may be challenged to decide which products, promotions, or behaviors to incorporate into the webpage. In some circumstances, an e-commerce website provider simply makes an educated decision as to which products and promotions will most likely be favorably received by online users. In other circumstances, an e-commerce website provider may run a small or large scale test involving different variations of a webpage. For example, each of the different variants of a webpage may display a different special promotion.
To run a test on a webpage, some or all of the users requesting the webpage from a web server are divided into distinct test groups. Each of the test groups is exposed to a different variant of the webpage from that of the other test groups. The e-commerce website provider will then monitor and track the responses of each of the different test groups to the different variants of the webpage. Based on the results of this type of a test, an e-commerce website provider will then deploy, on a wide scale basis, the particular variant of the webpage that achieved the most favorable responses.
Obtaining reliable results from online consumer tests are problematic, however, from a statistical point of view. One such problem arises from the difficulty of assigning the members of an online test population, i.e., the users, into different test groups in a random manner, especially when multiple tests are running on a website. This problem arises from the fact that the identity of users is largely unknown, thereby making it difficult to ensure that the users are randomly assigned to test groups without consuming valuable system resources. It would therefore be an improvement over the prior art to provide an efficient system and method for assigning the members of an online test population, i.e., users, to one or more test groups in a random manner such that errors in the test results are reduced and such that the use of valuable system resources is minimized.
The features and advantages of the disclosure will be set forth in the description that follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the disclosure without undue experimentation. The features and advantages of the disclosure may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.